Update: Amazon has officially purchased Twitch.tv for $970 million. In Twitch's announcement of the deal, CEO Emmett Shear repeatedly thanked the Twitch community for helping build the company, and that "with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch." The letter states that Twitch will be "keeping most everything the same," and that Twitch will remain independent from Amazon. Any big deal like this takes time, and according to Amazon's press release, the acquisition is expected to close in the second half of this year.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon gave a quote about the deal, saying “Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community.”

So what happened to the Google deal? A report from Forbes, Google was concerned about possible anti-trust problems that would arise from the deal, and Google and Twitch couldn't come to an agreement on the size of a breakup fee if the deal was killed.

The original story from earlier today is below.

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Well-sourced site The Information(subscription required) is claiming that Amazon is in "late stage talks" to purchase Twitch.tv, the video game streaming site, for $1 billion.

Further Reading

Pact exposes "Wild West" of copyright law in the world of online game streaming.

Three months ago, Varietyfirst reported that Google was set to purchase the site for the same amount, but we've yet to hear anything official from either company. We've been starting to wonder if the Google/Twitch deal would ever become official; and if Twitch is still courting other suitors, it would explain why that deal has yet to happen.

The site live streams video game footage to 45 million viewers a month, and it has been cleaning up lately with aggressive copyright enforcement and a mass deletion of old videos, possibly in an effort to attract a buyer.

According to the report, an Amazon/Twitch deal "could be announced shortly."

(old) Update: The Wall Street Journal has chimed in, saying according to "a person who has been briefed on the matter," Amazon + Twitch is a done deal for $1 billion. The report says the official announcement could be made as soon as Monday.

(old) Update #2: Bloomberg'ssources say "An announcement for an acquisition for about $1.1 billion could be made as soon today, one person said," and Recodecorroborates the reports, too.

Ron Amadeo / Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work.